People learned to hate the burnbastard place very quickly. Sometimes within minutes of arriving. After nearly two years his own hatred had set as hard as concrete.

The ashcan world had turned its charcoal face to the sun and forgotten its manners. The only place for a wastrel like him, he supposed. Still, no-one asked his opinion. Ever. He was just a humble Investigator.

The buildings were all ash-white. Faint ghost things trying vainly to protect themselves from the solar victimisation. He sought every tiny, elusive spot of shadow as he made his way across town.

The inappropriately named Greenwood Forensic Facility stood on its own, as if all the nearby buildings had turned their backs on it and shuffled farther away.

Investigator Tull flipped his lapel label at the entry sensor and the door slid open with a faint disturbance of ash. A stern-faced woman looked at him from behind her desk as he walked into the foyer. He noticed her hand snake towards her weapon before a quick flash of his I.D. placated her as well.

There was only one corridor leaving the foyer, so he took it. The walls were painted a nauseous pink and the carpet had a pattern spotted with red here and there. Perhaps to hide the blood stains, thought Tull. He supposed there must be some escapees. At least, he hoped so.

The only pleasant thing about the place was the cold. It crawled all over him, soothing his parched skin and making his clothes feel a little less as if they were trying to strangle him to death.

He found the door he needed. Room Y. A sick joke on someone's part, evidently.

The room was wood-lined. Not that hygienic, he thought. Surely stainless steel, plastic and tile would be more suitable. The stench of chemicals was oppressive, even insulting, to anyone with a sense of smell. Anyone alive.

The wood felt like rubber beneath his fingers. The colour made it look as if the walls were dripping with honey. Tull's stomach growled in response.

He jumped as a figure emerged from a hidden side door. Even though the Investigator knew it was there, somehow he never expected it to be. The short, bald figure that emerged looked his way. "Welcome to the House of Pain … where no-one feels a thing. Come on in. Grab a slab." His twitching, quipping face disgusted Tull. Neckless and balding, his stout figure stretched his heavy apron unpleasantly.

"Two feet are fine, thanks. And I intend to stay on them." They'd known each other a long time but Teg presumed too much of their relationship and one day Tull intended to show him that.

"You're here to see the boy who was found outside the Hotel Bateman on Tegrat Street, I take it?" Tull nodded glumly.

He flipped a cigarette from its packet as he followed the short man to an occupied slab. The sound made Teg turn on his heel and glare at Tull. "Do you mind not smoking in here!? It upsets the clients … "

Tull acknowledged the idiotic joke with a sour smirk and slid the cigarette back into its cosy home.

Without further ceremony, Teg pulled back the sheet covering the body of the young man. Tull hated this part of his job. Reminders of his own inevitable mortality were unwelcome and far too frequent for his taste. He forced himself to look at what lay on the slab.

The boy's skin was as ash grey as the buildings outside. But much colder. Teg's blade has stripped away any last vestige of dignity the boy might have had. There was a crudely-sewn Y-shaped stitch holding his torso together. The sight always appalled Tull. As if death wasn't enough of an insult by itself.

The instruments on the trolley alongside glinted, cold and bright. Brutal. Tull made a mental note that there was no trace of blood on them. He presumed the doctor had finished cleaning them before he'd arrived.

"One of a dozen going out tomorrow. Going home - and all he had to do was die to get there," said Teg.

"Is it like all the others? The same cause of death, I mean?" quizzed Tull.

When the doctor shook his head, Tull's face darkened. There had been a spate of deaths recently. He and his tiny department was under a lot of pressure form both their own superiors and the companies that treated this place as their private domain.  "If only we had some answers."

He'd half-whispered the words but Teg's sharp hearing had still  caught them. "Well, what do you expect to find when you look in all the wrong places?"

"I look in all the places there are," Tull spat back.

"Except here." He reached out a latex-clad paw, tapped his forehead, then moved forward to touch the Investigator. Tull backed away quickly.

Shrugging, Teg turned to a side table and picked up a covered steel dish. Lifting the lid, he held it out to the other man.

At first Tull thought he was being presented with an animal coprolite. But even Teg wouldn't sink that low … would he?

"What is it?" Tull braced for the answer.

"It's the laqueus tempus. It's tucked just underneath the brain. We all have one. It should be moist and supple - very fragile. This one is dessicated, spavined, as you can see. In a word, it's been drained."

"Drained of what? What does it do?" Tull hated the games Teg played to prove his superior knowledge.

"Time. You see, this little thing determines how much time we have left to live." Teg turned the dried, dirty-looking thing over in the palm of his hand. For a second, Tull thought the doctor was going to pop it into his mouth.

"Really? I've never heard of it," said Tull.

'Well, just add it to that very long list." Teg's smirk deserved to be slapped off his face but Tull knew he'd get the worst end of things once his superiors heard of any physical intervention.

"These things fetch a very nice price on the black market in some circles but not in this condition. Transplant is extremely tricky, of course, but in the right hands …". Tull brought Teg's rambling to an end with a sharp cough.

"The point is," continued the ugly little doctor, "this boy's laqueus tempus shouldn't look anything like this. He's far too young."

"Was he ill? I mean, can disease do that to this … organ?"

Teg shook his head slowly. "Certainly no disease I've heard of - and I collect the damned things. No, this was the cause of death all right but it wasn't natural."

"Murder then?" Now Tull felt on safer ground. "But how?"

The doctor ran his gloved fingers over the boy's face in a way that make Tull's stomach churn. "You like touching death, don't you, Doctor?"

The little man put his head on one side and smirked. "Only when it doesn't touch me!"

His latex-clad fingers lingered near the corpse's mouth. "From the contusions around the lips I'd say the method used was osculation."

Tull snorted, half in disbelief. "The kiss of death … literally."

He fished a pad out fo his pocket and flipped it to his case notes, musing over  a few pertinent details. "Poul Eveels. 24. He was an Upticker at the Ashley-Lladnek-Nakazawa Transport Hub. A bit young to be doing that, if you ask me …"

"Well, we can't all be as old as you, Investigator," sniggered Teg.

Tull grunted and looked up at him, trying once again to judge his age. He'd known the diminutive doctor over 15 years and the man hadn't aged a day in that time. 'The devil certainly looks after his own,' he thought.

"Very amusing, Doctor. Do you have anything useful to add? For instance, is the M.O. at all familiar to you?"

Teg looked thoughtful for a second or two. "It reminds me of a case your colleagues Wilson and Kettekkettek tackled about four years ago. Similar outcome, partial comparability."

"OK. Thanks. I'll contact Kettekkettek about that. Wilson is half crazy!" He retrieved the pack of cigarettes from his coat, ready to light up as soon as he was outside.

Tull looked down at Teg. "Thank you, Doctor. You'd better put our friend there back in cold storage ready for his journey home. Such a waste … so young, so …". The Investigator stopped mid-sentence, finding that he had run out of words for once.

Teg nodded. "His soul wasn't perfect but then …" he muttered.

Tull was puzzled by the remark - it was strangely metaphysical for the doctor. He was about to ask him what he'd meant by it when a sense of physical discomfort overwhelmed him. Suddenly he felt as if the oppressive heat from outside had leaked into the room, stifling him. There was the taste of bile in his mouth and he felt mutated reflexes spreading through his nerves. He needed to find some water.

He heard Teg issue an invitation from a thousand miles away. "Don't go, Investigator. Stay for a while."

Tull looked down at the little doctor and his peculiar smile. "I've got to go - I've got a job to do. There's a murderer to catch!" His excuse was true but it was still an excuse. He had to get out of the room.

Tull turned to the door but a wall of solid wood panelling was all he saw. The honeyrubbered walls were now perfectly smooth where the door used to be. "Wh-where did the door go? Wha -?"

He turned again to Teg, who stood there not answering but merely gazing into Tull's eyes.

He appeared much taller than Tull remembered. And had his hair always been so dark and glossy? Strange too how he'd never noticed before how full and red the doctor's lips were.